Sacramento’s hot real estate market gains attention

Sacramento is California’s new real-estate hot spot, according to a news report Friday.

The Wall Street Journal cited several examples of the city’s boom, including urban-renewal projects in “a once-sleepy downtown”; the opening of Golden 1 Center; a luxury condo tower under construction called the Sawyer with penthouses priced over $4 million; and homebuyers getting into bidding wars.

Homes in Sacramento have been selling in an average of 34 days—six days faster than they were at this time last year, and 28 days faster than the U.S. overall, The Wall Street Journal said in the article published Friday.

Sacramento remains relatively affordable, the newspaper confirmed. The median price a square foot of a Sacramento-area home is $228, compared with $531 in the Bay Area.

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The Sacramento Bee earlier this month reported that 46 percent of households could afford to purchase a median-priced home of $319,720 in Sacramento County. The California Association of Realtors said that would require monthly payments of $1,640 and minimum qualifying income of $65,700.

Low inventory and relatively strong buyer demand for those homes that are available pushed Sacramento County home prices higher in April, the Bee reported on Wednesday. The report by Irvine-based real estate market tracker CoreLogic said the median sales price among countywide sales of all dwellings –including new and resale houses and condominiums – in April was $317,000, up from $311,000 in March and a 7.5 increase from $295,000 in April 2016.

WSJ spoke to Sacramento Kings owner Vivek Ranadive for the story.

Sacramento “went from one of the worst real-estate markets to one of the best,” said Ranadive, who is also founder of Bay Area tech company Tibco. Ranadive has purchased a condo in the Sawyer.

A historical, east Sacramento multi-generational home has been listed for $3.9 million. The property includes three homes on a half-acre site. The 4,000 square-foot main house's expansive grounds include a Zen garden sanctuary with Koi pond, water

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